Chapter 68: The Morning After

I woke early on Saturday, pulled on sweats and my walking shoes. I’d cultivated a habit of walking a mile every morning. It was a combination of vanity and fear that drove me from a warm bed and out into the dawn. Like most friends my age, I had to make more of an effort to keep the weight off. Running, a friend of my youth, was no longer an option after two knee replacements.

            Even at 7:15 a.m., the air felt sticky. It was a familiar feeling.

            I was staying in one of the vacant rooms that paralleled the Lawn, in the second tier called the Range. The Alumni Association made these rooms available to returning alumni on a first-come, first-served basis. The rooms looked charming in the brochure, but bending down to stretch in the morning light, I remembered: this is student housing. No pillowtop mattresses, no walk-in showers, certainly no air conditioning. However, what my room lacked in comforts it made up for in prestige. My room was number 11, West Range, next door to the room Edgar Allan Poe occupied during his single term at the University in 1826. John had been impressed.

            I headed out at a brisk pace. I deliberately headed toward Alumni Hall, where our information packet indicated the kitchen would be open for early risers. This meant coffee. Maybe even a forbidden Danish.

            The grounds were eerily quiet, except for the occasional runner who I stepped aside for with a knowing nod to running etiquette. It took no time to build up a low-grade sweat in the Virginia humidity. I stopped at Emmet Street. Waiting, like the rule-follower I am, for the crosswalk to allow passage, I noticed a small crowd gathering on the west terrace of Alumni Hall. Judging from the blue clouds rising through the morning haze, this cloistered area was, I assumed, a nod to alumni who still smoked.

            I crossed, heading for the doors to the main hall.            

“Drew.”

            The voice came from the west terrace.

            “Drew, over here. It’s Christopher.”

            I turned to see Christopher taking a quick drag from his cigarette, then butting it in an ashtray before striding my way.

            “Wait. Please. I just want to talk for a second.”

            “Of course. Good morning. I didn’t expect to see anyone up at this hour.”

            Chris was dressed in the alumni uniform: khakis, blue oxford button-down with sleeves rolled to the elbow, and Bass Weejuns loafers, no socks. An errant shock of blonde hair fell over his forehead, completing the look we had perfected as students.

            “Look, I wanted to apologize. For yesterday.”

            I held up a hand to stop him. “Chris, it’s not necessary—”

            “Yeah, Drew. It really is. I need for you to hear this. Do you have a minute? There’s fresh coffee inside.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows, hoping for a yes.

            Fortified with coffee, we sat on the stone wall that lined the east terrace. I waited for Chris to start, hoping we wouldn’t have to replay to horror movie that had unfolded the afternoon before.

            “I’m sorry for Amelia. She gets that way, when she drinks.”

            “I figured she was pretty drunk.”

            “Yeah. I tried to run interference when I saw you, but she was already three steps ahead. I left to get her a watered down drink. I don’t know what she said while I was gone. I’m guessing it was pretty awful.”

            “More like ‘painful.’”

            “She won’t remember any of it when she wakes up.”

            “Is she getting any help? For her drinking, I mean.”

            Chris gave an audible sigh. “Not yet.”

            I had heard that answer, and variations of it, in sessions with my patients. I said a silent prayer for Amelia.

            “I’m here for the meeting, but I guess you already knew that.”

            Puzzled, I asked, “What meeting?”

            “So you’re not here for the AA meeting? The Alumni Association has them scheduled throughout the weekend. Usually around dawn or dusk. The ‘dangerous hours’ I suppose.”

            “Ah. All the smokers. Makes sense now.” I laughed lightly. “I vaguely remember seeing something on the schedule.”

            “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything. I mean, who knows what demons we carry around anymore? Right?” Chris fidgeted.

            “You can smoke, you know. It won’t bother me.”

            Relieved, Chris reached for a cigarette, lit it and exhaled with a grateful “ahh.”

            “I quit, then start,” he said. I’ve actually been doing pretty well. Eighteen months. Then the stress gets overwhelming.” He paused, then looked at me. “ I started again yesterday.”

            I nodded. “How’s your sobriety going, if you don’t mind me asking?”

            “Twenty-five years seven months, twenty-two days.” He looked proud. After 20 years working with addicts, I’d seen that look before. Regardless of what led him to sobriety, he had earned that look.

            “Congratulations. I work with the addiction community, you know.”

            “I’d read that in the Alumni News.”

            “It’s really smart, making meetings available I mean.” I nodded toward the Lawn and the academic center of the University. “A lot of triggering memories in those hallowed halls.”

            Chris smiled. “More than you might know.” And pausing he added, “You must be here for the other meeting.”

            “I’m sorry. I’m not following. I’m just out on my walk. And my morning quest for this,” I said lifting my coffee cup.

            “Sorry, sorry. There’s another meeting. For the gay folks.”

“I think you mean the LBBTQ+ Alumni Meeting.” I saw it on the agenda.

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s in the Colonnade Room at 8:30. I just thought.” Chris stopped short, dragged deeply on his cigarette, and looked away.

            In the silence my mind began its usual task of filling in the blanks. So, Chris is in recovery? What about Amelia? How does that work? What was yesterday all about, the drink he brought me? And to Amelia? Is that, ‘I can’t drink, but I’ll be sure you get all you want? Who does that?

            The University Chapel chimed eight.